The horizontal line represents the person’s life.1620 - born1688 - died

Wouvermans, Philip

, an eminent artist of Holland, was born at Haerlem, in 1620, and was the son of
Paul Wouvermans, a tolerable history-painter, of whom,
however, he did not learn the principles of his art, but of
John Wynants, an excellent painter of Haerlem. It does
not appear that he ever was in Italy, or ever quitted the
city of Haerlem; though no man deserved more the encouragement a-nd protection of some powerful prince than
he did He is one instance, among a thousand, to prove
that oftentimes the greatest merit remains without either
recompence or honour. His works have all the excellences
we can wish; high finishing, correctness, agreeable composition, and a taste for colouring, joined with a force that
approaches to the Caracci’s *. The pieces he painted in.
his latter time have a grey or blueish cast; they are finished
with too much labour, and his grounds look too much like
velvet: but those he did in his prime are free from these
faults, and equal in colouring and correctness to any thing
Italy can produce. Wouvermans generally enriched his
landscapes with huntings, halts, encampment of armies,
and other subjects where horses naturally enter, which he
designed better than any painter of his time: there are
also some battles and attacks of villages by his hand. These
beautiful works, which gained him great reputation, did
not make him rich; on the contrary, being charged with
a numerous family, and but indifferently paid for his work,
he lived very meanly; and, though he painted very quick,
and was very laborious, had much ado to maintain himself.
The misery of his condition determined him not to bring
up any of his children to painting. In his last hours, which
happened at Haerlem in 1688, he burnt a box filled with
his studies and designs; saying, I have been so ill-paid

*

Many of the best works of Wonvermans were in the gallery of the
prince of Orange at the Hague. One
of the most remarkable of them is
known by the name of the Hay-cart)
another in which there is a coach and
horses isequally excellent,“&c. ”Upon
the whole, he is one of the few painters
whose excellence in his way is such a
leaves nothing to be wished for."
Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Works,
vol. II. p. 543, &c.

|
for my labours, that I would not have those designs engage my son in so miserable a profession." Different authors, however, ascribe the burning of his designs to different motives. Some say it proceeded from his dislike to
his brother Peter, being unwilling that he should reap the
product of his labours; others allege that he intended to
compel his son (if he should follow th’e profession) to seek
out the knowledge of nature from his own industry, and
not indolently depend on copying those designs; and
other writers assign a less honourable motive, which seems
to be unworthy of the genius of Wouvermans, and equally
unworthy of being perpetuated.

Houbraken observes, that the works of Wouvermans and
Bamboccio were continually placed in competition by the
ablest judges of the art; and the latter having painted a
picture which was exceedingly admired, John De Witt
prevailed on Wouvermans to paint the same subject, which
he executed in his usual elegant style. These pictures
being afterwards exhibited together to the public, while
both artists were present, De Witt said (with a loud voice),
“All our connoisseurs seem to prefer the works of those
painters who have studied at Rome; and observe only,
how far the work of Wouvermans, who never saw Rome,
surpasses the work of him who resided there for several
years!” That observation, which was received with general
applause, was thought to have had too violent an effect
on the spirits of Bamboccio and by many it was imagined
that it contributed to his untimely death. 1

This text has been generated using commercial OCR software,
and there are still many problems; it is slowly getting better
over time.
The text was scanned and OCRd several times, and
a majority version of each line of text was chosen.
Please don't reuse the content
(e.g. do not post to wikipedia)
without asking liam
at holoweb dot net first (mention the colour of your socks in the mail),
because I am still working on fixing errors.
Thanks!